The religious leadership of Iran has defied the warnings of Donald Trump in appointing Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei.
The development is described by regional officials as a direct rebuke to U.S. President Donald Trump, who had declared the son “unacceptable”.
The late supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was k!lled in a U.S.-Israeli strike at the start of the conflict, now in its second week.
The appointment of Mojtaba as his successor by the Assembly of Experts locks hardliners firmly in control in Tehran – a gamble that could reshape Iran’s war with the U.S. and Israel and reverberate far beyond the Middle East.
“Having Mojtaba take over is the same playbook,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. It’s a big humiliation for the United States to carry out an operation of this scale, risk so much, and end up k!lling an 86-year-old man, only to have him replaced by his hardline son.”
Under Iran’s complex, theocratic system, the supreme leader is the ultimate authority, including over foreign policy and Iran’s nuclear programme, as well as guiding the elected president and parliament.
Confrontation over compromise:
Analysts say the choice of Mojtaba, a deeply hardline cleric whose wife, mother and other family members were also k!lled in U.S.–Israeli strikes – sends an unequivocal message: Iran’s leadership has rejected any prospect of compromise to preserve the system and sees no path forward except confrontation, revenge and endurance.
According to insiders, Mojtaba will face immense internal and external strain from a disaffected population and an escalating conflict, but is expected to move swiftly to consolidate power.
That will likely mean expanded authority for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, harsher domestic controls and sweeping repression to crush dissent.
“The world will miss the era of his father,” a regional official close to Tehran told Reuters. “Mojtaba will have no choice but to show an iron fist… even if the war ends, there will be severe internal repression.” That stance comes after months of deepening domestic unrest – the bl00diest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution – that had already weakened the Islamic Republic before the war began.
Iran was grappling with a battered economy, soaring inflation, currency collapse and widening poverty, alongside tightening repression that had fuelled public anger and protests – pressures now likely to intensify under wartime rule.
Difficult days lie ahead under Mojtaba, with far tighter internal controls, intensified pressure at home and an even more aggressive, hostile posture abroad, said another Iranian insider familiar with the situation on the ground.
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